# The Fourth Dimension



## EvilCrazyMonkey (Sep 27, 2008)

So I was screwing around on Wikipedia today during my newspaper class and stumbles upon these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessaract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:4-dimensional_geometry

This is pretty interesting. Nearly caused my brain to implode at first, though. Fun if you're nerdy like me.

edit:
this really helps understanding the fourth dimension: http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/math/4D/welcome.html


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## Icalasari (Sep 27, 2008)

...How does one even begin to IMAGINE what this stuff would look like? Our minds think in 3-D, not 4-D x.x


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## Diz (Sep 27, 2008)

I don't know, but when you are tired, it's fun to make your head hurt. 
*Points at A Wrinkle in Time* How would one go about making a tesseract happen?


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## Twilight Dragon (Sep 27, 2008)

Lol, just showed this to my dad and I described it as a "weird square thingy" XD

I can't even begin to imagine a fourth dimension D:


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## Diz (Sep 27, 2008)

Can anyone really?


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## Icalasari (Sep 27, 2008)

_Ditto_ said:


> Can anyone really?


Yes, or else we wouldn't have the concept


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## shadow_lugia (Sep 27, 2008)

I always imagined a fourth dimension as some kind of inverted first demension.

Either way, that stuff looks awesome. Wonder what the fifth demension is, if most imagine the fourth as time. Perhaps it's a kind of anti-time: something that slows time down and prevents it from going all at once.


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## Icalasari (Sep 27, 2008)

shadow_lugia said:


> I always imagined a fourth dimension as some kind of inverted first demension.
> 
> Either way, that stuff looks awesome. Wonder what the fifth demension is, if most imagine the fourth as time. Perhaps it's a kind of anti-time: something that slows time down and prevents it from going all at once.


Apparently, the 3rd dimension would be considered time in the 2nd dimension. So, I don't even think we could experience the 5th dimension at all


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## #1 bro (Sep 27, 2008)

I highly recommend this.


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## Eevee (Sep 27, 2008)

Time is not a spatial dimension, for obvious reasons.  If anything, I would call it the zeroth, as it would be present in a universe regardless of the number of spatial dimensions.

I can somewhat imagine a fourth dimension using a timeline as a parallel, but not so well a fifth.


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## Zhorken (Sep 27, 2008)

though it _would_ be cool if time were the fourth dimension because we'd get to obsolete the second in favour of the cm^4.  I'd hope.


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## Eevee (Sep 27, 2008)

It's still part of space-time, but as a rather unique axis I don't think it's sensible to lump it in either way.  :(


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## OrangeAipom (Sep 27, 2008)

Zeta Reticuli said:


> I highly recommend this.


I don't think there's enough matter for that.


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## Zhorken (Sep 27, 2008)

well really it's just that I don't like the second.  :(


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## Alxprit (Sep 27, 2008)

Sigh... man. I feel like understanding this could lead to some very revolutionary discoveries, but... it seems impossible to fathom.


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## PK (Sep 28, 2008)

i like to read this kind of stuff and attempt to wrap my head around it. I fail miserably.


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## @lex (Sep 28, 2008)

Randomly searching Wikipedia for interesting subjects is great :3

When I look at the rotating tessaract, it looks like the inner cube just comes out of the outer and grows while the outer shrinks, and yeah... Is that supposed to be, or am I just missing something? :<

Anyway, these stuff are great fun :3


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## EvilCrazyMonkey (Sep 28, 2008)

@lex said:


> Randomly searching Wikipedia for interesting subjects is great :3
> 
> When I look at the rotating tessaract, it looks like the inner cube just comes out of the outer and grows while the outer shrinks, and yeah... Is that supposed to be, or am I just missing something? :<
> 
> Anyway, these stuff are great fun :3


I think they've got an article on 4D rotation but I can't be arsed to find it.

Rotation in the _n_th dimension is around an _n_-2 dimensional object. For example, 2D shapes rotate around points (zero-dimensional), 3D objects rotate around an axis (1D), and a tesseract would rotate around a plane (2D). The actual mechanics of the rotation I'm not entirely sure, but I think it involves going back and forth perpendicular to the plane.


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